Making it in media

guardian.co.uk

Paul Johnson the Guardian

Paul Johnson is deputy editor of Guardian News and Media, and head of news, business and sport. Educated at Cardiff University, his first newspaper job was as a graduate trainee with Wolverhampton's Express and Star. He joined the Guardian as a reporter covering the Midlands and was then appointed Irish correspondent, winning awards for his reporting in the 1980s when the violence was at its height. He was a member of the award-winning teams that investigated the 'cash for questions' scandal and the inquiry into former cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken. As assistant editor and then deputy editor, he played leading role in the Guardian's transformation into the Berliner format in 2005.

guardian.co.uk

Aditya Chakrabortty economics leader writer, the Guardian

Aditya Chakrabortty has been economics leader writer for the Guardian since March 2007, and has shaped its editorial response to the banking crisis and the recession. He joined the Guardian from the BBC where he was a senior producer on the BBC Ten o'clock News and on Newsnight. Before that, he spent five years as economics producer for the BBC, working with then-economics editor Evan Davis. His series of reports from China won a Harold Wincott award in 2006. He has also written for the Telegraph, the Financial Times, the FT Magazine and the New Statesman. He took a degree in Modern History from St Hugh's college, Oxford.

guardian.co.uk

Natalie Whelan entertainment producer, Five News

Natalie graduated from the University of Leeds in 2008 with a degree in Broadcast Journalism. She won Student Broadcaster of the Year at the Guardian Student Media Awards in 2007 and part of the prize was a placement at Sky News which led to a job as a guest producer at Sky News. Natalie then moved to Five News to work as a Guest Promoter and in 2009 she became Entertainment Producer at Five News producing content for Five News with Natasha Kaplinsky and the new programme Live From Studio Five.

guardian.co.uk

Alexandra Topping reporter, the Guardian

Born and bred in the Lovely North, Alexandra studied English at Oxford and then went to Paris for a few years to learn French, drink coffee and look romantic. She worked as an English teacher before she decided that she wanted to become a journalist and asked all English-speaking for some experience. She got an internship at the Washington Post and moved back to London, into a paid position as researcher with the Washing Post London bureau. Alexandra then applied for the Guardian Training scheme and beat 1200 applicants to get a 12-month training contract. She studied PGDip in journalism at Sheffield and worked for 6 months or so on Guardian Society. After that she got another news reporter contract and was made staff in January 09.

Five-star reviewing

guardian.co.uk

Melissa Denes arts editor, the Guardian

Melissa Denes has been the Guardian's arts editor since 2006. Before that she was assistant editor of the Guardian's Weekend magazine, and features editor at the Sunday Telegraph Magazine. She has interviewed actors, writers, directors and photographers, and reviewed books and films for the Daily Telegraph, Independent, TLS and Harpers and Queen.

Paul Morley, writer and broadcaster

Paul Morley wrote for the NME between 1977 and 1983, and contributed to the first issues of The Face. He also contributed in the 1980s to iD, New York Rocker and Blitz. He has been a TV critic for The Guardian, New Statesman and GQ, and was a contributing editor in the 1990s to Esquire. He is currently a contributing editor to Arena Homme Plus and a critic-at-large for the Observer Music Monthly, and his monthly multi-media Showing Off ... column appears on the Observer/Guardian web site.

He is a regular contributor as cultural critic to television and radio shows including BBC 2's Newsnight Review and Radio 4's Saturday Review and Front Row. In 2009 he wrote and presented a documentary series for Radio 2 on the history of the record label, profiled Bruce Forsyth and John Cooper Clarke for Radio 4, and appeared in a two part BBC 4 documentary that covered his time studying composition at the Royal Academy of Music. He has recently become an artist-in-residence at the Southbank Centre.

guardian.co.uk

Miranda Sawyer radio reviewer and cultural commentator, the Observer

Miranda Sawyer started her career at Smash Hits, before moving on to Select Magazine where she won the PPA Magazine Writer of the Year Award in 1993, the youngest person ever to do so. She wrote a Time Out column from 1993-96 and won the In The City music-writing award for profiles on Paul Weller and Oasis written for The Observer. A contracted feature writer for The Observer for over fifteen years, she is the paper's radio critic and writes a column for the Observer Music Monthly.

Miranda is a regular guest on many review programmes including Newsnight Review, The Culture Show, Question Time and Saturday Review. She was a judge for the 2007 Turner Prize and was on the panel that awarded Liverpool its Capital of Culture status. She was recently appointed to the Tate Members' Council.

Her first book, Park And Ride, was published by Little, Brown, & Company in 1999, and has been reprinted in paperback several times since. She lives in London.

guardian.co.uk

Krissi Murison editor, NME

In September of this year Krissi Murison flew back from New York to become the 11th editor of NME. Prior to that she had worked as Music Director at US women's magazine NYLON, where she had booked tours and managed a fledgling record label, alongside writing and producing video content for the magazine's music pages, website and TV channel.

Krissi's journalism career began aged 15 when she convinced her local Newspaper, the Reading Evening Post, to let her interview some bands for them. While editing the music pages of her student newspaper in the early '00s, she began submitting freelance reviews for NME and landed herself a staff position shortly after graduating. During her first stint at NME – as New Bands Editor, then Features Editor and finally Deputy Editor – she also wrote a new music column for The Sunday Times and spent a summer reporting back from festivals for MTV2. Since returning as Editor of NME this autumn, Krissi has presided over one of the most-talked about magazine covers of the year ('When Ian Brown Met Jay-Z') and is busy planning the NME Awards 2009.

Investigative reporting – a masterclass

guardian.co.uk

Paul Lewis reporter, the Guardian

Paul Lewis has been a journalist at the Guardian for four years. He started working as a freelance writer after graduating from Cambridge University and Harvard University, contributing to various publications in the US, Africa and the UK. In 2007, 18 months after joining the Guardian's newsroom, he was nominated Young Journalist of the Year and won the Stern Fellowship, an award that places British journalists at the Washington Post.

Cross-platform photojournalism – a workshop

guardian.co.uk

Roger Tooth head of photography, the Guardian and the Observer

After spending a couple of years studying photography at the Central London Polytechnic, Roger Tooth joined the Hackney Gazette in the early 1970s as a NCTJ trainee. After he finished his training he worked on the paper for some time before moving on to IPC magazines. Roger left in 1982 to freelance for various magazines and newspapers including the Guardian and then joined the Guardian as assistant picture editor in 1988. He worked on most areas of the paper including the website when it was first launched. Roger became picture editor of the Guardian in 2001 and head of photography of the Guardian and the Observer in 2008.

guardian.co.uk

David Levene photographer

David Levene has worked as a photographer for the Guardian since 2000, after graduating from Camberwell College of Art. His work has appeared in the Guardian across news and features, and his videos on guardian.co.uk

Alongside this, David's work regularly appears in architectural and design magazines including Icon, and Building. He also undertakes annual trips for charities such as Everychild and Oxfam, documenting the work of their projects around the world.

guardian.co.uk

Lisa Foreman picture editor, guardian.co.uk

Lisa Foreman joined the Guardian Picture Desk in 1998 after having studied for an MA in Paper Conservation at Camberwell College of Arts.

guardian.co.uk

Elliot Smith multimedia producer, the Guardian

Elliot joined the Guardian picture desk as a researcher in 2005. After a secondment to guardian.co.uk, he became the website's first Multimedia Producer. He now works across the site producing flash presentations, slideshows and videos, with a particular focus on collaborating with photographers. Always keen to stay at the forefront of modern technology, he recently made his first darkroom prints from negatives.

guardian.co.uk

Susan Schulman freelance photojournalist

Susan Schulman is an acclaimed, internationally published freelance photojournalist, and filmmaker. American, she is based in London.

Specialising in editorial and documentary work, particularly in conflict and post-conflict regions, Susan also undertakes work for NGOs and other non-profit organisations. Committed and passionate about the lives and circumstances she documents, Susan has designed and created successful media initiatives to draw attention to issues, in particular, to the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She both photographs and films, commonly maximising the value of one trip by producing, where desired, the full complement of multimedia opportunities for print/web and broadcast.

Susan's work also features regularly in various photographic magazines, and newspapers, magazines etc throughout the world.

Keynote speech

guardian.co.uk

Nick Davies special correspondent, the Guardian

Nick Davies has been named Journalist of the Year, Reporter of the Year and Feature Writer of the Year for his investigations into crime, drugs, poverty and other social issues. Hundreds of journalists have attended his masterclass on the techniques of investigative reporting. He has been a journalist since 1976 and is currently a freelance, working regularly as special correspondent for The Guardian.

He also makes TV documentaries; he was formerly an on-screen reporter for World In Action. His four books include White Lies (about a racist miscarriage of justice in Texas) and Dark Heart (about poverty in Britain). He was the first winner of the Martha Gellhorn award for investigative reporting for his work on failing schools and recently won the award for European Journalism for his work on drugs policy.

Flat Earth News, his controversial book exposing falsehood, distortion and propaganda in the news media, was published as a hardback in February 2008 and as a paperback in January 2009. In May 2009, Flat Earth News won the first Bristol Festival of Ideas book award, to be given annually for a book which "presents new, important and challenging ideas, which is rigorously argued, and which is engaging and accessible." It is now being translated into Thai, Vietnamese, Greek, Dutch and Chinese.

The future of feature-writing

guardian.co.uk

Merope Mills editor, guardian weekend

Merope Mills won the Feature Writer of The Year at The Guardian Student Media Awards in 1999. Following her win she joined the Guardian as a feature writer and quickly moved on to become commissioning editor of G2 taking responsibility for all interviews and book extracts. She was promoted to assistant features editor before becoming editor of Friday Review/Film & Music for two years and seeing through the section's Berliner relaunch.

Merope has been the editor of Guardian Weekend magazine since March 2006.

guardian.co.uk

Tanya Gold columnist and feature writer

Tanya Gold is a columnist and feature writer for the Guardian (under contract and freelance). She studied history at Oxford University and then worked as a gossip columnist for a range of national newspapers. She writes the agony column for Esquire.

Sarfraz Manzoor, writer

Sarfraz Manzoor is a writer, journalist, documentary maker, and broadcaster.

Born in a village outside Lahore in Pakistan, he came to Britain in 1974. He grew up in Luton where he attended comprehensive school and sixth form college before being seduced by the gritty charms of Manchester, where he studied economics and politics at the city's university.

After graduating he spent two years languishing in soul-destroying office work, where he managed to get himself sacked on an impressively regular basis, before finally washing up in London as an ITN news trainee.

He joined Channel 4 News and spent six years producing and reporting before being lured into Channel 4 as a Deputy Commissioning Editor. He has directed television documentaries for Channel 4, presented documentaries on Radio 4 and is a regular panelist on Newsnight Review on BBC2.

He is the author of his childhood memoir 'Greetings from Bury Park' and a contracted writer for the Guardian and the Observer where he contributes features, comment, reviews and travel writing.

PR

'To Tweet or not to Tweet' by Sky News

guardian.co.uk

Rob Kirk editorial development manager, Sky News

Rob Kirk is Sky News' editorial development manager and is responsible for training, work placements and Sky News' relationships with schools and universities, as well as special projects. Rob was previously Senior Home News Editor and has been involved with many of the biggest stories of recent years, including the wars in the Balkans and Gulf, Northern Ireland and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, as well as producing several news documentaries. Prior to joining Sky, Rob ran a news and training agency, was Head of News at Thames TV, and worked for the BBC. He began his career in regional newspapers in East Anglia and Birmingham after graduating with a history degree from the University of York, and an MA in African Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies

guardian.co.uk

Jon Gripton online senior news editor, Sky News

Jon Gripton is online senior news editor at Sky News and is in charge of newsgathering and forward planning for skynews.com. He is responsible for editorial content on skynews.com ranging from stories from the UK, World, Politics, Business, Technology and Showbiz – and also scours social media for the latest breaking news stories. Jon moved from being a general news editor to working exclusively on Sky News's website in 2007 when it beefed up its web and online breaking news operation. This further enhanced Sky News' reputation for being first for breaking news, not just on television but increasingly on different platforms. He was previously a news editor and forward planner for Sky News' television channel. Jon joined Sky from the BBC where he was a radio breakfast presenter. Prior to his move into broadcast media, Jon worked as a newspaper journalist.

guardian.co.uk

Ruth Barnett twitter and social media correspondent, Sky News

Ruth Barnett is the twitter and social media correspondent at Sky News, the first role of its kind created in UK broadcast media. She uses social media to find sources, develop stories and spot trends for web, TV and radio as well as delivering news from Sky directly into those online communities. Ruth joined Sky News as a multimedia producer in 2007 and worked on the award-winning TV strand Sky.com/News (now called SkyNews.com), the live web show Unplugged and wrote for the sky news website. Ruth was included in Broadcast Magazine's annual list of "hot shots" in 2008. Ruth joined Sky after beginning her career at the Press Association after gaining a post-graduate qualification in newspaper journalism from City University, London, and a degree in Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge.

guardian.co.uk

Hugh Westbrook interactive producer, Sky News

Hugh Westbrook is interactive producer for skynews.com Hugh is responsible for the production of all of the website's interactive projects. Has worked at Sky News for more than nine years across online, Sky News Active and Sky Text, reporting on a number of major stories over the period. Hugh also produced skynews.com web-only show Technofile and is still responsible for technology material across Sky News. Hugh previously worked for the BBC on Ceefax Sport and Business, and was a freelance writer for a number of years for many business newsletters, in particular on the food and retail sectors.

What editors need to know

guardian.co.uk

Ian Katz deputy editor, the Guardian

Ian Katz is deputy editor of the Guardian, responsible for the weekday paper. Ian joined the Guardian in 1990 and has since been a reporter, foreign correspondent, and features editor. In 1993 he won the Laurence Stern fellowship awarded by the Washington Post. He served as the paper's New York correspondent from 1994- 1997 and in 1998 he launched the paper's acclaimed website - guardian.co.uk. Between 2006 and 2008 Ian edited the Guardian's Saturday edition and was responsible for all editorial marketing. Ian is currently overseeing the paper's ambitious plans on the environment, including both on-line and newspaper coverage. He was also responsible for developing the Guardian's experimental Chinese language site, http://guardian.yeeyan.com/

Comment and opinion in a digital age

guardian.co.uk

Georgina Henry executive comment editor, the Guardian

Georgina Henry joined the Guardian in 1989 as media correspondent and became editor of Media Guardian a year later. She was appointed deputy features editor in 1992. She was deputy editor of the Guardian from 1995-2006 and on the board of Guardian Newspapers from 1996-2006. She launched Comment is free in March 2006 and is now executive comment editor of the Guardian, across print and web, and assistant editor of the paper.

Adam Rutherford, Science writer and broadcaster

Adam Rutherford is a professional geek. He holds a PhD in genetics, works at the science magazine Nature, and presents radio and television programmes for the BBC, including Cell: a landmark series covering four billion years of evolution and 300 years of biology, intrigue, betrayal, and rather more sperm than is absolutely necessary.

Adam has written for over 60 articles for Comment is Free, including a 10 week series of failed conversion to evangelical Christianity on the Alpha Course. His first blog for CiF, a grouchy response to atheists being universally labelled as "intellectual cowards", briefly held the record for the most comments ever. He stopped claiming this as an achievement after he was soundly beaten by articles by a Radio 1 DJ, a posh gap year student, and one about a godforsaken bus.

Meet the interviewers

guardian.co.uk

Simon Hattenstone feature writer, the Guardian

Simon Hattenstone is a features writer/interviewer for Weekend magazine. He has written a sports column, been the film editor and was assistant arts editor in the distant past. Simon has written four books, including Out of It (about his childhood), The Best of Times (about the lives of the England players from 1966) and the autobiography of Duwayne Brooks (the friend of Stephen Lawrence, who was attacked with him) and snooker ace Ronnie O'Sullivan, and is currently working on his first novel.

guardian.co.uk

Decca Aikenhead weekly interviewer for G2

Decca Aikenhead studied politics and modern history at Manchester University, where she began writing features for the Manchester Evening News. After graduating in 1994 she studied a one year post graduate diploma in journalism at City University, before joining the Independent as a features writer. She moved to the Guardian in 1997 as a columnist, and has remained there ever since, writing features across the paper. Decca has been a regular broadcaster for Radio 4 and Radio 5, presented BBC TV documentaries, and she won Interviewer of the Year at the British Press Awards in 2009.

guardian.co.uk

Ginny Dougary special features writer, The Times

Ginny Dougary is an award-winning journalist and writer. After leaving Bristol University in 1978, with an honours degree in English, she worked for The Sunday Telegraph, the Radio Times and Tatler under the editorship of Tina Brown.

In 1981, Ginny moved to New York and then to Sydney where she was Arts Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and senior writer on the SMH colour supplement, Good Weekend, where she still a regular contributor.Ginny Dougary has written for most of the national newspapers in the United Kingdom and her articles are syndicated worldwide. She has been contracted to The Times, where she writes major interviews for the magazine and T2 , since 1992.

She is the author of The Executive Tart and Other Myths – an exploration of women in the media, and a contributor to several anthologies. She is also a founding member of the national organisation of Women in Journalism which was launched more than ten years ago, and of the Brighton City Singers choir which started in July 2003.

Media Talk live

guardian.co.uk

Chair: Matt Wells head of audio, guardian.co.uk

Matt Wells is head of audio at the Guardian, and presenter of the Media Talk podcast. He joined the Guardian in 1999 as a reporter, became media correspondent in 2000, and edited Media Guardian from 2004 to 2007. He previously worked at the Edinburgh Evening News and the Scotsman, where he was variously education correspondent, assistant news editor and London correspondent.

He was one of the first reporters on the scene of the Paddington train crash in 1999, he covered the Hutton Inquiry and its cataclysmic aftermath, and has presented a media show for the London talk radio station LBC.

Panel:

Josh Halliday, editor, Degrees North magazine

Josh is a Bradford-born, third-year University of Sunderland journalism undergraduate. He launched the weekly European chat for journalism educators, students and practitioners, collegejourn.com. Josh is a part-time Digital Media Assistant at Sunderland AFC, full-time Editor of University of Sunderland's Students' Union magazine, Degrees North. He is apparently the first undergraduate to present to the UK Association for Journalism Education and he is a sometime-blogger at JoshHalliday.com, beatblogger at SR2Blog.com.

Benjamin Cohen, business and technology correspondent, Channel 4 News

Benjamin Cohen joined Channel 4 News in 2006 aged 23 - the youngest correspondent to have been appointed in the programme's history. The programme's first technology correspondent, Benjamin is keen to show how technology has become an integral part of everyday life. His number one question when hearing of a new development in the industry is always: "How will it affect my grandparents?"

As a member of Channel 4 News's growing business and economics unit, Benjamin regularly reports on consumer issues, privacy, Britain's growing gambling industry and the media (both old and new), piracy and broadband.

Since joining Channel 4 News, he has gained a number of scoops including: the Midlands council suing computer giant Dell, irregularities in competitions on a major radio station and strong warnings from the European Commission for both Google and the mobile phone networks.

Benjamin works across Channel 4 News at Noon, Channel 4 News and More 4 News where last year he fronted a week of special programming on our "Dot.com decade". He also regularly writes for channel4.com/news.

Emily Bell, Director of Digital Content, Guardian News & Media

Emily Bell has worked for the Observer and then the Guardian for the past 18 years, setting up MediaGuardian.co.uk in 2000 and becoming editor-in-chief of Guardian Unlimited in 2001. In September 2006, Emily was promoted to the new position of director of digital content for Guardian News and Media.

Richard Bacon, 5 Live

Richard Bacon is the presenter of Radio 5 Live's late-night phone-in show. In January, as part of a revamp of the station's lineup, he takes over from Simon Mayo in the 2pm to 4pm slot. He built his career presenting iconic shows including Blue Peter, the Big Breakfast and Top of the Pops. Richard's current work also includes newspaper journalism and presenting feature programmes for BBC Television.